AN EX-PUB manager with a “Jekyll and Hyde character” has been jailed for mentally abusing two former girlfriends through a series of frightening and humiliating incidents.

Craig Smart hijacked one woman’s Facebook account, posting fictional profiles, and threatened to kill her.

When his second girlfriend, a medical secretary, dumped him, he wrote to social services alleging she had sex in front of a child.

Smart, 38, of Doncaster Road, Selby, also doused himself in white spirit, tied himself to a tree near Brayton Church off the A19 near Selby and called 999.

When police arrived he made a statement trying to implicate one of the former girlfriends in his false kidnap.

He was only caught when police found a receipt for the cable ties. They visited the shop and found CCTV showing Smart buying the white spirit four hours before.

Hull Crown Court heard the former landlord of the Bull and Sun pub in Bridlington became controlling and obsessive after his partners split from him.

The women described him as a perfect boyfriend at first, but said his mood changed suddenly when they announced it was over.

Smart was jailed for two years after pleading guilty to three charges of threatening to damage property, two of threatening to kill and one of perverting the course of justice.

Mark McKone, prosecuting, said Smart sent false Facebook messages to a former girlfriend’s mother, father and grandmother and also sent them text messages saying rocks would be thrown at her windows.

A Facebook message was also sent to the ex-girlfriend, threatening to “slice her face open” and “get her mum.”

He wrote to the NHS hospital where his second girlfriend worked as a medical secretary, claiming he had split up with her because he could no long tolerate her breaching client confidences.

His first victim said she had gone from being a confident person who liked to socialise to one who constantly worried when the next message would arrive, who had nightmares and had stopped going out.

Alex Manary, for Smart, said: “Mr Smart suffers from erratic and impulsive behaviour, which stems from his bereavement at his father dying when he was 14.

“He has problems when relationships break down.”

Recorder Rachim Singh said Smart had committed premeditated offences, deliberately carried out to cause damage and pain and only a custodial sentence could be justified.